My video tinkering journey!

[krenko]

UPDATE: I've learned nothing! Ha! Well, that's not quite true - I've discovered a very useful program called MKV Tool Nix which I've found a very effective and easy tool to use. I've found some (absolutely appallingly badly translated) subtitles online for Bienvenue Chez Les Rozes and so I ripped my dvd and made an mkv with subtitles. But they are VERY badly made subs and to be honest, the film made more sense without them I think!

I've discovered that I can edit the srt file in notepad so I've begun gently rephrasing some of the awkward wording. Just for a bit of practice and fun really!

I've done a lot of research and found the internet rabbit hole of sites offering programs that can capture video for you. All of them look dodgy and I'm willing to bet that the ones which claim to be lossless are anything but! They also want a lot more personal information than I think it's necessary to give them! I'm limited to using a laptop for the time being so am I on the right track in thinking some sort of usb video capture card is what I should be using? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I've also found a lovely editing program called Resolve. There's a lot for this amateur to learn but I feel like it's going to be another useful friend. One function is that it allows the user to combine two different video sources so from what I can tell this should be what I'll need to elimate the logos from the second movie I'd like to tinker with.

I haven't done much more than play around with it yet as when I tried to load the sources into the project one didn't work. I checked and it's in a TS format so that'll need converting once I figure out to change the frame rate so that they both match (one is 24, the other 29). Once I've got the frame rates matched and the TS converted to a format Resolve will deal with I should be all set.

And finally, I haven't even started researching about upscaling that 10 second scene for the third movie.

Bitten off more than I can chew? Absolutely! But it's fun figuring things out (always open to helpful suggestions though!)

The saga continues...

[spoRv]

Bitten off more than I can chew? Absolutely! But it's fun figuring things out

Yes, indeed it's a pain in the... neck at the beginning, to understand how things work, how to do this, how to do that etc. - still, very entertaining, and when finally you figure out something, it's like a small victory!

Slowly, you'll discover a lot of things - sadly, I do not know if some kind of "restoration guide" actually exists - it would have been useful when I started to thinkering with video, audio, subs etc.

[krenko]

Progess has been slow but I'm moving in a forwards direction. I am learning more and more (but mostly what CANNOT be done!)

I've found OBS Studio (which I'm sure most of you are very familiar with already) and learned the basics. Unfortunately it seems my little laptop just doesn't have the processing power as the video capture is very poor no matter how I tweak the settings! So until I upgrade to a more powerful desktop pc I'll have to put the custom blu ray of "Bienvenue..." on hold.

I'm still interested in fiddling around with logo removal so I shall continue to try to hunt down the hdtv rip of that film. As long as it's within the rules if anybody can point me in the right direction send me a DM.

Although not one of the three I initially wrote about I have achieved something in the way of a complete project:

I've been looking for many years for a US tv movie from 1995 called "The Set Up". It's pretty daft, all bank robberies and double crosses and that sort of thing but I watched it as a teenager and wanted a decent quality version for nostalgia! From what I can tell it's not out on DVD in most of the world but there's a couple of uploads of it on youtube in varying (bad) quality. I actually came across a "dvd rip" on a Russian site and although the quality was far superior it was dubbed.

Basically, I took the Russian video and replaced the audio with the original English from one of the YouTube uploads. So now I have a 640x480 version of the movie with the best sound and video I've been able to track down. It could be a "very good" VHS or an "okay" DVD, it's certainly not comparable to the modern quality we're all used to but it's very watchable with no glitches that my amateur eyes can see.

I know that to most of you this is probably a VERY easy thing to accomplish but I'm completely new to all this so managing to do this is something to be proud of!

Next up, I'm going to try to alter the frame rate of an HDTV rip so that its audio can be synched to another rip which is different. I'm then going to try to do some colour correction on the video which should be interesting as I don't have high quality or properly calibrated monitors and I am also colour-blind!

Anything could happen but I'll see about making some comparison screenshots once I'm at that stage of things - hopefully some of you could give me some feedback?

Anyway, lots of obstacles and hiccups but I'm learning things and having fun.

[SpaceBlackKnight]

What is the HDTV rip you speak of? Is it from the UK or from the US?

[krenko]

What is the HDTV rip you speak of? Is it from the UK or from the US?

Hi SpaceBlackKnight, the HDTV rip is "Bienvenue Chez Les Rozes" from a French broadcast, which was apparently 1080i. Beber posted a screenshot of it on the previous page so it's definitely still around somewhere, but try as I might I can't find any trace of it in my searches. 

As my only other option to get ahold of the movie in HD is to buy it to stream from the US Amazon store and capture it (which I've just discovered I can't do with my current PC) I'm going to have to try to clean up the tv capture to see if I can make it a bit more presentable! It is available on the US Microsoft store (to stream or download, not sure how they do things) and also on the US iTunes but neither of those are options open to me as I'm in the UK and can't make accounts to purchase it! Strangely, this FRENCH film doesn't appear to be available to purchase in France - only in the US and a couple of other places around the world.

I really don't mind the work seeing if I can patch up the HDTV capture, I'm learning as I go and having fun doing so but I'm struggling to find this tv rip so I can get started. So yeah, if anybody has access to sources that the likes of me don't I'd REALLY appreciate a bit of help getting my hands on it!

Oh boy, did I pick the wrong movie to take a liking to!!